A vacuum drying cabinet can comprise, as has been described and illustrated in DE-OS 195 18 396, a chamber formed with surfaces, e.g. shelves, which can accommodate a product to be dried under vacuum, e.g. a pharmaceutical or a material to be converted into a pharmaceutical or a food product. The carriers or supports can be shelves which can be traversed by a heat exchange medium and thus can form heating or cooling plates, the shelves generally being located one above another and defining between them bays which open into a quiescence space or chamber. The latter can lie adjacent the door of the cabinet.
When such a vacuum drying cabinet is to be cleaned, the cleaning is generally effected manually through the open door. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations or the GMP regulations (the European regulations for pharmaceutical product lines) require that the cleaning guarantee that each point in the vacuum drying cabinet be flushed with the cleaning liquid. Regulations may require a certification of the cleaning of such a cabinet to the effect that no point has been skipped by the cleaning liquid. However, in manual cleaning operations, no such assurance can be given.
There are however vacuum drying cabinets known in which cleaning devices have been integrated. For example, nozzles have been built into the individual bays or shelves or juxtaposed with them for flushing the surfaces and spaces with the cleaning liquid. Such nozzles, when they are permanently fixed in the cabinet form projections and covered edges at which contaminants can collect and which themselves cannot be cleaned as readily as can smooth surfaces. Such vacuum drying cabinets with built-in cleaning facilities have, therefore, almost as many drawbacks as systems which require manual cleaning.